Great column as always, Lynn. I like the definition of loser as someone who has lost something. We all have to try to lose the things that are blocking us.

Can I ask you a technical question about the sensory processes you talked about? Where does learning by reading and study fit in? Is it visual or is it considered to be separate?

Thanks for reading and responding.

Perhaps wisdom/serenity is knowing what to lose and let go of and what to hang onto. In winning we often only learn what is working to maintain a certain level. Its in losing that we learn how to improve. In winning we lose and in losing we have the opportunity to win.

Yes reading is a visual process.

Some people see the words on the page and record them in visual memory just like they see them. Practicing this strategy can lead to a type of photographic memory. This is rather intellectually content specific.

Other people see the visual words and construct the visual scene that is being described. If this is from a spectator dissociated position it does not lead to the same skill acquisition is if they construct the scene as if they were actually in the acquisition/scene performing the actual act developing the physical kinesthetic feelings (and slight neural firing) of doing it. You can see the difference in people who make slight ideo-motor movements while reading.

As we demonstrate a skill in the dojo, some just watch keeping the visual scene external, some internalize and begin to imitate the movement, some sub-vocalize describe the movements, and some don't see the movement or hear the instructions.

A poorer strategy (the one I used to use as an auditory learning) was to attempt to sub-vocalize the written page. It takes so much longer to say "catch the ball" then to see and feel myself catching it.

A master chess playing actually spends more time studying the games of other masters and visualize the game in front of them as if they are at the board than they actually spend playing.

This type of mental-rehearsal is very common in sport/performance psychology.

I like the reading/study part because it give some insight into the internal strategy needed to acquire and perform a new skill.

Hope that helps in some small way.

Until again,
Lynn

Lynn Seiser PhD
Yondan Aikido & FMA/JKD
We do not rise to the level of our expectations, but fall to the level of our training. Train well. KWATZ!